This month, in September of 2011, the internet’s largest domain registrar reached a historic milestone for domain registration, surpassing the 50 million mark. That is 50,000,000 domain names registered through GoDaddy.com, the 50 millionth being DBAkit.com. The event represents a significant milestone not only for godaddy, but for the internet as a whole. Despite slow growth in other sectors, the internet remains a fruitful marketplace full of opportunity and growth.
Some industry pundits predict that the golden age of domain ownership has passed, and makes claims that all good domain names have been taken. But this event is a clear indicator that this is not the case. Those that counter this claim see domain name registration akin to the real estate market, where each and every individual is able to purchase their own little slice of the internet. Besides representing the address for websites, both of the commercial and personal nature, domain names allow for personalised email addresses and e-commerce opportunities.
An interesting point to take from this milestone on domain registrations is that despite the monumental number of domain names being registered each year, recent studies have shown that nearly 40% of businesses (small to medium) have yet to setup a website nor register their company’s domain name. If this is not a sign of opportunity, Im not sure what is.
Go-Daddy is the largest ICANN-accredited domain registrar in the world, and is said to be roughly 3.5 – 4 times as large as their nearest competitor. In 2011, Go Daddy was acquired by a group of investment firms and technology players at an unofficial price of $2.25 billion.
